The Christian Year eBook

Little they dream, those haughty
souls
Whom empires own
with bended knee,
What lowly fate their own controls,
Together linked
by Heaven’s decree; —
As bloodhounds hush their baying
wild
To wanton with some fearless child,
So Famine waits, and War with greedy
eyes,
Till some repenting heart be ready for the skies.

Think ye the spires that glow so
bright
In front of yonder
setting sun,
Stand by their own unshaken might?
No—­where
th’ upholding grace is won,
We dare not ask, nor Heaven would
tell,
But sure from many a hidden dell,
From many a rural nook unthought
of there,
Rises for that proud world the saints’ prevailing
prayer.

On, Champions blest, in Jesus’
name,
Short be your
strife, your triumph full,
Till every heart have caught your
flame,
And, lightened
of the world’s misrule,
Ye soar those elder saints to meet
Gathered long since at Jesus’
feet,
No world of passions to destroy,
Your prayers and struggles o’er, your task all
praise and joy.

HOLY COMMUNION

O God of Mercy, God of Might,
How should pale sinners bear the sight,
If, as Thy power in surely here,
Thine open glory should appear?

For now Thy people are allowed
To scale the mount and pierce the cloud,
And Faith may feed her eager view
With wonders Sinai never knew.

Fresh from th’ atoning sacrifice
The world’s Creator bleeding lies.
That man, His foe, by whom He bled,
May take Him for his daily bread.

O agony of wavering thought
When sinners first so near are brought!
“It is my Maker—­dare I stay?
My Saviour—­dare I turn away?”

Thus while the storm is high within
’Twixt love of Christ and fear of sin,
Who can express the soothing charm,
To feel Thy kind upholding arm,

My mother Church? and hear thee tell
Of a world lost, yet loved so well,
That He, by whom the angels live,
His only Son for her would give?

And doubt we yet? Thou call’st again;
A lower still, a sweeter strain;
A voice from Mercy’s inmost shrine,
This very breath of Love divine.

Whispering it says to each apart,
“Come unto Me, thou trembling heart;”
And we must hope, so sweet the tone,
The precious words are all our own.

Hear them, kind Saviour—­hear Thy Spouse
Low at Thy feet renew her vows;
Thine own dear promise she would plead
For us her true though fallen seed.

She pleads by all Thy mercies, told
Thy chosen witnesses of old,
Love’s heralds sent to man forgiven,
One from the Cross, and one from Heaven.

This, of true penitents the chief,
To the lost spirit brings relief,
Lifting on high th’ adored Name:-
“Sinners to save, Christ, Jesus came.”